Over the years, they played local teams and some from North Platte, Lexington, Cozad, Arnold and Curtis.

Stevens remembers when a farm team from Lodgepole issued a challenge.

“They thought they had a pretty good team and we beat ’em,” he said.

For Fenner, the most memorable game for the Soddies was against Tri-County.

“They was tough,” he said.

Stevens described the team as about as good as the Sodbusters.

“And when we played them, it was for blood.”

Second baseman Willard Kuhlman said with a chuckle, “We was just a little bit better—that was the problem.”

During one game, Fenner remembers sliding into second base.

“They heard my ankle crack clear up in the bleachers,” he said.

Stevens tore his knee open when the Soddies played the Farmalls from Cozad.

“Marvin Hilton was wearing spikes and was sliding into home when he caught my knee and cut it open. They had to sew me up,” he said.

During the surgery, Stevens said longtime doctor Burt Pyle told him, “There’s a better game like golf.”

Another memorable game was when the Sodbusters traveled to Curtis.

“We beat them so bad—20-something to nothing—we didn’t know whether or not to stay afterwards,” Stevens said, noting that none of the Curtis players even made it to first base. “They was about ready to run us out of town.”

The teammates decided not to go home right away and instead went to a local business to socialize and drink “barley pop.”

“It’s pop made with barley,” Stevens said with a grin.

Fenner also recalls how, whenever they got into an argument, left fielder Les Jobman “got us to quit.”

“I didn’t know we ever argued,” Jobman said with a smile.

Fenner confessed that other teams “got us mad every once in a while.”

When the Sodbusters first organized, team members said they were sponsored by Stebbins Implement and later by Nelson and Tetro who bought the Stebbins dealership.

“Rex and I had to go down and beg them to sponsor us,” Stevens said about the new owners.

Their uniforms consisted of a red-and-white shirt with “Sodbusters” and a plow emblazoned across the front.

The team disbanded after about 12 summers when “we just got too old to play,” according to first baseman Morris Devine.

However they reorganized in September of 1980 when the local Jaycees challenged the Soddies.

After lasting four innings, some of the sons of the Soddies took over and beat the Jaycees 21-20.

Talk of a reunion for some time was what prompted Stevens and Fenner to finally organize one.

“Most of us are still alive. That’s because of all of the exercise we had at the time,” he said, laughing.

Devine said he got all his exercise “running bases at Curtis.”

Second baseman Bob Plank described the farmers as natural ball players.

“It was all that good country living,” said Shirley Stevens who is married to Orvin.

Besides the jokes and the games, Kuhlman said the players were close knit.

“That was special,” he said.

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